Symmetric Mach-Zehnder Demultiplexing Technique for Optical Time-Division Multiplexing: Comparison of EAM, MZM and AM

摘要

Optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) updates the well-known technique of electrical time-division multiplexing into the optical domain. In OTDM, optical data streams are constructed by multiplexing a number of low bit-rate optical streams in time domain. In this paper, the performance of eight channel OTDM system is analyzed and compared for different modulators such as EAM, MZM and AM with Symmetric Mach-Zehnder demultiplexing switch at bit rate of 20 Gbps. The effect of input signal power on BER, Q-factor and received optical output power has been evaluated. It is observed that EAM, MZM and AM provide acceptable Q-factor of 7.70, 7.50, 6.69 and BER of 2.55 x10~(-16), 1.15 x10~(-15), 4.33x10~(-13), respectively at 5 dBm transmission power. Furthermore, it is found that EAM is more superior as compared to MZM and AM.